STAY CONNECTED

October 21st, 2010

I can’t recall how I stumbled upon this, but Vertical Rhythm is a site that has a couple WordPress templates available for download. These are templates adapted from two Swiss design pieces; the publication Neue Grafik and typographic poster by Josef MÃ¼llerâ€“Brockmann.

I’m not going to say go nuts and download these, but I do think they’re pretty cool. It’s always interesting to see the grid for a print piece transform directly into a web grid.

Lately a lot of people have asked me where I got my theme template. The answer to that is that I made it myself. If you aren’t wanting to do that, you could download a very simple theme that is bare essentials and build up from that.

They look pretty sweet to anyone who admires this type of design (as do I), however we interact with blogs in a much different way than printed pieces and to me it seems to lose its luster when i see the working theme preview. Perhaps because the preview for this theme could be so much better or perhaps the grid used in this style doesn’t translate into a very good web/interactive experience.

So good! I added them to my Parsons blog that I’ve barely kept up on since Aug. This might be the incentive I needed to keep going with this. Thanks for sharing, the themes’ designers did a wonderful job.

Shelby these are super cool! Good find. Ha and I see why people want your theme, the time you put into it really shows in the details… People think simple is easy until they try to do it themselves.. I love the proportions of your blog and how well everything lines up. And most especially the complete lack of fucking rounded corners (I am so sick of rounded corners).

Pablo I have to agree, the idea behind the themes is really cool, but those posters are designed as large-format print pieces and don’t make for the easiest online UX.

And Pablo, you are right, on the basis of how we interact with blogs vs. a print piece, this might not be the most user-friendly and accessible, but when applied in the right context, it can work– I think using it for a design-focused purpose is appropriate, but it would likely not be for less-related subject matter. There is a method to the flow of content that one could figure out using the neue grafik theme I have installed (zurich looked messed up when I tested it), that would make things look really nice btwn type and img content, otherwise it does get slightly disjointed. On the whole tho I am hoping to use it as a launch point for further customization, coupled with some good content and make the blog worth actually sharing.

Thanks for all of the positive feedback guys :). The project isn’t mine, but I was fortunate enough to be invited to design the Neue Grafik theme for this project. I’m glad you all liked what we came up with!